The 'hustler' city built on hardscrabble ambition

1of710/22/1894 - Cotton bales on railcars at the Houston and Texas Central Railroad yard in front of Grand Central Depot in Houston, Texas. Photo taken at 2:30 pm just after the principal cotton received for the day had been switched to compresses and connecting lines. Also seen in the photo are the Lawler Hotel, two breweries and factories.

6of7As the sunsets, Kurt Rossow works a 120-acre field planting cotton southwest of Beeville, Texas, Wednesday, March 2, 2016. Texas leads the nation in production of cotton, which has plummeted in price as other nations step up production and stretchy manmade fibers enjoy a fashion moment reminiscent of the 1970s. Cotton growers are facing hard times and are hoping they can reclassify the product as an oilseed to make it eligible for subsidies that were lost in a trade dispute with Brazil.Photo: JERRY LARA, Staff

7of7Kurt Rossow adds fungicide to fertilizer as he works a 120-acre field planting cotton southwest of Beeville, Texas, Wednesday, March 2, 2016. Texas leads the nation in production of cotton, which has plummeted in price as other nations step up production and stretchy manmade fibers enjoy a fashion moment reminiscent of the 1970s. Cotton growers are facing hard times and are hoping they can reclassify the product as an oilseed to make it eligible for subsidies that were lost in a trade dispute with Brazil.Photo: JERRY LARA, Staff

Houston's early business leaders saw the city's success entwined with their own.

Today, the city maintains that entrepreneurial spirit despite having become the fourth largest U.S. city and its No. 1 exporting region, as well as a global energy capital and an under-recognized center for the arts.

"Houston has always been about business," local historian Betty Chapman said. "Still is."

The city was founded in 1836 and built on its ability, with its access to ports and railroads, to transport the region's resources around the world. Cotton, lumber and agricultural products became the city's foundation and Houston benefited from funneling those goods from Texas and neighboring states down Buffalo Bayou to the Port of Galveston, and later from the Port of Houston.

Whenever amenities like street lights or paved roads became available early on, they always went first to the business center downtown, she said.

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from bayous to business hub

1841:

Houston opens its first market house building on Market Square

1845:

11,359 bales of cotton pass over Houston's docks

1866:

Houston's bank established

1899:

2.5 million bales of cotton pass through Houston

Cotton drove Houston's early growth as a trade city.

Lumber, rice, fruits and vegetables also were major products of the region.

Expecting settlers, brothers Augustus and John Allen planned 62 downtown blocks with 80-foot-wide boulevards, according to the 1991 book "Houston: Gateway to the Future." By 1837, about 1,500 people had settled in Houston and built 100 houses, according to "The People of Baker Botts" by J. H. Freeman, which was commissioned by the law firm.

William Marsh Rice came to Houston from Massachusetts, but the ship he sent with goods to sell in Texas sank on its way. "He arrived penniless," Chapman said, and began his career in Houston as a bartender. He became involved in the cotton trade and other industries, founded what became Rice University and at one point was known as the wealthiest man in Houston. Despite his initial misfortune, his story of self-making represents Houston's start.

Agriculture was the foundation of early trade, with farmers from around the state hauling their produce on wagons to Market Square downtown. In 1841 the first market house opened across from the square, with stalls for selling goods and offices for city hall.

"This was a really good agricultural area," Chapman said. "That was about all they had going for them at the beginning."

Houston's biggest economic driver in the 1800s and into the 1900s was cotton. Farmers also grew pears, peaches, grapes, plums, strawberries, raspberries, cabbage, peas, sweet potatoes and alfalfa, according to the 1894 book "The Industrial Advantages of Houston and Environs."

Much of it was grown in the fertile Brazos River Valley, Chapman said. The cotton merchants served as Houston's bankers as businesses grew since banking wasn't legal in Texas until after the CivilWar, using cotton as collateral for loans. In 1866 First National Bank became Houston's initial bank, said Jim Parsons, director of special projects for Preservation Houston.

By 1884 Houstonians had built the Cotton Exchange Building to house the growing market, and before the turn of the next century merchants were exporting cotton to Japan and Europe. In 1899 more than 2.5 million bales passed through Houston, bringing in more than $250 million, W.W. Dexter wrote in the 1900 book "Picturesque Houston."

By the mid-1920s Houston had the largest spot cotton market in the world, according to the New Encyclopedia of Texas. Houston had built its own port and become one of the biggest cotton exporters in the U.S.

Before Houston had its own port it remained secondary to Galveston, which had the coastal advantage. Getting railroads built to it, and later its own port, propelled Houston past its coastal sibling.

"By the 1880s Houston was really tied into the national economy by the railroads," said University of Houston professor and historian Joseph Pratt. "And that really changes the trajectory of the region."

Later in the 19th century, John Henry Kirby boosted the size of the lumber trade through Houston. From East Texas, he built a railroad to transport cargo from the forests there to Houston's port. In 1896, he established his first sawmill, and at one point controlled more than 300,000 acres of forest and 13 sawmills.

By the end of the 1800s, Houston had some manufacturing, including several producing macaroni pasta, breweries, and all types of retail stores. "The Industrial Advantages of Houston and Environs" indexes hundreds of businesses from manufacturers to electricity companies to toy stores.

Houston has always seen itself as welcoming, particularly to business, attracting people who kept up the city's momentum through the decades, Chapman said. The people who arrived in Houston weren't wealthy, just ambitious - and white and male. At the time married women were not allowed to sign business contracts, she said. Some, mostly widows and single women, did run shops offering goods like groceries, sewing supplies and fabric.

After the Civil War, African-Americans in Houston faced the same Jim Crow obstacles enacted across the South.

Houston's early businessmen realized that their own success would be limited or propelled by the growth of the city, and their efforts to make Houston a hub for commerce, and later culture, set the city apart.

"That's a big difference, the booster attitude, hustler mentality," Pratt said. "People who were accustomed to working hard and were ambitious realized fairly soon after they got here that they needed a bigger, better city in order to pursue their own ambitions."

Houston didn't let its location 50 miles inland stop it from becoming a major port, for example, and fought and won against Galveston for the Texas legislature's support to build the state's railroads through Houston.

"It's always been perseverance in Houston," Chapman said. "There have always been leaders who thought something could be done, doesn't matter if it was difficult, we can do it."